


Talent

by vtn



Category: The Network (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-16
Updated: 2006-08-16
Packaged: 2017-11-17 16:57:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Viktor Svengali makes his debut at a school talent show. </p>
            </blockquote>





	Talent

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the [](http://over-look.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://over-look.livejournal.com/) **over_look**  challenge, for the prompt "Entertainment".

It’s dark and quiet with the curtains drawn. We sit in wooden chairs, a small table between us.

She is a new admission, just eleven and properly wide-eyed. Dressed in white as she is, she stands out against the velvet like a ghost.

The curtains open. I open my hand, following their motion, and reveal a candle. I know my schoolmates like sleight of hand—they’ll watch me do card tricks some nights instead of going to sleep when told—and so I conceal a lighter in my palm, jerk a finger to flick it on while at the same time drawing my hand up and back. It looks as if the motion of my hand alone sets the wick alight.

“Look at the candle. Do not let my motions distract you.” Big blue eyes turn up to meet mine. Lips pout in a pretty triangle. 

“What will happen to me?” I place a hand on one shoulder, my fingers dark against her white dress. 

“Not a thing.” I toss my head, flicking my gaze out over the audience. “Fear not, for no one will be harmed upon this stage!” Then I curl my dry lips into a smirk. “That is, so long as you listen to my instructions.” Amelia, the little girl, gasps, and I laugh. Just a joke, right? She shakily nods her understanding, and I pass a hand over her head. “Look at the candle. Only the candle.”

“Only the candle, right.” I pride myself on my choice of volunteer—her voice rings out through the room, high and light and clear as a bell.

Do you want to know a secret about hypnotism? The patterns I wave my hands in around her head as I leave the candle on the table mean nothing and have no purpose. They are for show. 

Have you ever seen a stereograph—a three dimensional image hidden in a block of pattern than only becomes clear when the eye focuses away? Hypnotism is quite the same, except imagine the square as the human conscious and the picture inside as the past, memories, and the very most impressionable part of the human mind.

That sort of anti-focus is visible in Amelia’s eyes now, and I whisper some things to her. This, along with my next few lines, is the essential part. The rest of my posturing is for the audience’s entertainment.

“When I say awaken, you will obey,” I say.

“You shall do as I say until then,” I say.

“Rise,” I say.

She stands. 

“What is your name?” I ask her. She is silent for a moment.

“I don’t know,” she finally says, voice trembling and body with it. “I can’t remember it!” There are gasps from the audience. I smile and run a hand through her hair. 

“Your name is Amelia.” Her face lights up, her eyes still dark with ‘un-focus’. It’s an eerie effect.

“Amelia! Of course!”

“Amelia.” I sweep up my hand, directing it toward the heads of the audience. “Tell them how you felt when I called you to the stage. Tell them about your fear.”

She turns to the audience and stands silent. A minute or so passes, and then she shakes her head. I cannot see her face, but I know that if I could, her eyes would show no emotion. Perhaps confusion, perhaps not; it depends on the person.

“This is not a stage,” she says softly. This is met with some laughter, but also some startled gasps. “This is my house. What stage are you talking about?”

“Who else is in your house?”

“It’s just me—and you, Viktor Svengali.”

“What about all those people down there, Amelia?” I try to force back my smile. 

“There’s no one down there, Viktor. Just the field…oh, and over there is the forest. And Mother’s garden—oh, there’s Mother, but there’s no one else.”

“Take a seat, Amelia.”

She does.

“Awaken.”

Her eyes focus again, and she yawns then knits her eyebrows in confusion.

“I…was somewhere else. I was…” She starts to rise from the chair. “What did you do to me?”

“Don’t fear. It’s just a little trick. Not the smallest bit of black magic.” I extend my hand to her. She takes it and I pull her to her feet then shake her hand. “Excellent work, Amelia.”

She blushes, steps back, and curtsies. I bow to her in return, unable to help my smile. She steps back out into the audience and then runs to where her friends are seated, talking to them excitedly. There is a smattering of applause which grows in amount and volume, and I bow again before letting the curtains close.

“That was our own Viktor Svengali, Hypnotist extraordinaire!” I hear the voice of my friend Michael, the boy they’ve picked to announce the acts. There is more applause and now I let myself fall back into the chair for a moment, my scant five minutes in the spotlight complete.

Part of me expects to hear echoes of my grandmother’s praise. Yet another part expects my mind to dredge up her criticism, her hate of hypnotist-as-performance-artist, her derision of schools like this very one that has become my home.

Instead, only silence, as the clapping, too, fades.

It’s dark and quiet with the curtains drawn.

I smile.


End file.
